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Reading Fleck Reading Fleck Questions on Philosophy and Science Eva Hedfors Doctoral Thesis in philosophy Stockholm, Sweden 2006 This doctorial thesis is based on the following papers preceded by an introductory outline: I. The Reading of Ludwik Fleck: Questions of Sources and Impetus. Social Epistemology Vol. 20, No. 2, April–June, 2006, pp. 131–161. II. The Reading of Scientific Texts: Questions on interpretation and evaluation, with special reference to the scientific writings of Ludwik Fleck. Forthcoming in Stud Hist Phil Sci. March, 2007 III. Fleck in Context. Forthcoming in Perspectives on Science. Vol 15, No 1, 2007. IV. Medical Science in the Light of the Holocaust: Departing from a postwar article by Ludwik Fleck. Forthcoming in Soc Stud Sci V. Medical Ethics in the Wake of the Holocaust: Departing from a postwar paper by Ludwik Fleck. Forthcoming in Stud Hist Phil Sci. The papers are reprinted with kind permissions of Social Epistemology, (Paper I), Stud Hist Phil Sci, (Paper II and V), Perspectives on Science, (Paper III), and Soc Stud Sci, (Paper IV). Eva Hedfors, Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Abstract Hedfors, Eva. 2006. Reading Fleck. Questions on Philosophy and Science. DoctoralThesis in Philosophy from the Royal Institute of Technology 20, 160+vi pp. ISBN 91-7178-471-3 The present thesis is based on a scientifically-informed, contextualized and historicized reading of Ludwik Fleck. In addition to his monograph, the material studied includes his additional philosophical writings, his internationally-published scientific articles and two, thus-far-unstudied postwar Polish papers related to his Buchenwald experiences. The sources provided by Fleck have been traced back to the time of their origin. Based on the above material, it is argued that, rather than relativizing science and deeply influencing Kuhn, Fleck, attempting to participate in the current debates, is an ardent proponent of science, offering an internal account of its pursuit that accords with his oft-contested epistemic concepts, e.g., Denkzwang, Sinnsehen and Kopplungen. The exposure of his description of the Wassermann reaction discloses a highly selective reading of the sources available at the time, but also reveals its relation to the current debate on Einzelwissenschaften, or the standing of new emerging disciplines versus age-old ones, all occasioned by the remarkable progress of science that has also affected philosophy. The divide between philosophers and scientists on the philosophical implications of modern physics is exposed, as is Fleck’s heuristic use of the latter topic in his epistemology. A more realistic account of his often-valued scientific accomplishments is provided. It is argued that the modern interpretation or received humanist view of Fleck is based on the opposition, at the time Fleck’s monograph was rediscovered, of STS writers to a scientifically-informed reading of his texts. An additional corrective to the received view of Fleck is found in some of his postwar Polish papers related his Buchenwald experiences. The latter might also provide an answer to some of the contradictions inherent in the modern mythology surrounding Fleck. In amply exposing the precarious situation of the time, and the complexity of the ethical issues at stake, Fleck’s papers in fact generate age-old philosophical questions still worth contemplating. Keywords: Ludwik Fleck, Wassermann reaction, Informed consent, Buchenwald studies, Human experimentation. © Eva Hedfors 2006 ISSN 1650-8831, ISBN 91-7178-471-3 3 Introduction Although he was virtually ignored by his contemporaries, Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961) is now identified as an important contributor to the contemporary history, philosophy and sociology of science, and is viewed as a pioneer of the sociological approach to science, of constructivist epistemology, of studies of laboratory practises and of investigations focused on the growth, stabilization and diffusion of scientific knowledge (cf., Löwy 2004, p 437 and Sismondo 2004, p 53). His once- neglected monograph, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Wissenschaftlichen Tatsache (EET), first published in German in 1935, was translated into English in 1979, as Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (GDSF). The latter has been the object of extensive secondary writings ever since, mostly within the humanities. There is agreement bordering on consensus concerning the merits of Fleck’s monograph, not least regarding its alleged anticipation of the theses presented in Structure of Scientific Revolution published by Kuhn in 1962, which was immediately acknowledged and has been immensely influential ever since (Biagioli 1992, p 199, cf. Fuller 2000). The alleged anticipation is exemplified in the vocabulary deployed by Kuhn. His concepts, such as paradigm and scientific community, have been seen as equivalents of Fleck’s much earlier notions of thought style and thought collective. The link between the two writers is found in the now well-known reference to Fleck made in passing by Kuhn in the preface to Structure of Scientific Revolution; this later turned out to be decisive in the serendipitous rediscovery of Fleck’s monograph. Kuhn’s own reluctance to acknowledge a more substantial influence from Fleck, as indicated in his preface to the English translation of Fleck’s monograph, has, if anything had the opposite effect (1979). The supposition that Fleck’s influence on Kuhn was profound is now often depicted as fact (Goldman 1983, Simmons 1991); reservations about this assertion are the exception (Harwood 1986, Wettersten 1991). Fleck’s work, notably the monograph, has been subject to an interpretative tradition in which the scientific notions used by Fleck in his case histories have been excluded. A cautious estimate would be that almost half of the monograph, and probably more, is directly devoted to scientific issues, mostly bacteriology and immunology. In other words, at least half of the book, or of the basis of his epistemology, has been considered dispensable. That the neglect of these parts could obscure their relationship to the rest of the text has not been considered. 4 Similarly neglected has been the possibility that those of Fleck’s writings available in easily- accessible translations represent only a selective portion of his work. The aim of the thesis The thesis is based on five papers, referred to in the text by their Roman numerals. All are related to the reading of Fleck, and include, in addition to two Polish papers, his philosophical and scientific writings in the original German or in English translations; there are as well the different texts written on Fleck from the 1920-1930s onwards, covering the rediscovery of the monograph in the late seventies, and its aftermath. By digging deeper into the material on Fleck – that is, not only the monograph, but also his additional philosophical writings (III), his highly-acclaimed, though scarcely studied, scientific writings (II), and, not least, his explicit and largely overlooked papers and sources (I, IV, V) – a picture or narrative emerges that, in the proper non-Kuhnian sense of the word, could be used as a paradigm when one attempts to illustrate the different perceptions of science that characterize the sciences and the humanities. As used in the text, the term ‘humanist’ and its derivations include historians, philosophers and sociologists of science, writing on science, though without education or professional experience of science. The notion of ‘science and technology studies’ or ‘STS writers’ is used in the restricted sense that corresponds to its use by its current critics when they refer to the adherents of the school (cf. Koertge 1998 p 3f). Although several questions could be addressed based on the above material, few could be answered with certainty. The purpose of the study is rather to suggest that a consistent interpretation of Fleck has to take into account the scientific parts of his writings, the proper sources and the context. The tacit background to my efforts is the question of why a tiny book, written in the 1930s by a Polish-Jewish bacteriologist contemplating microbiological questions, mainly addressing his peers, and largely inaccessible to an audience without that training or lacking field-specific knowledge, should develop half a century later into a cult text, or the alleged foundation of the modern sociology or theory of science (cf. Kuhn 1962 p vi-vii, 1979). Although the number of recent theses devoted to Fleck is impressively high, and includes American, Dutch, Danish and Swedish examples (cf. Simmonds 1991, van den Belt 1997, Brorson 2000, Liljequist 2003), all are based on this received, unchallenged view of Fleck as it was initially shaped in the 1980s. Furthermore, though Fleck is nowadays viewed as a pioneer 5 in the studies of laboratory practices (cf Latour and Woolgar 1979, Gross and Levitt 1994), his own case studies have scarcely been examined (cf Lindenmann 2001). Materials and questions at issue The first paper, The reading of Ludwik Fleck (I), attempts to trace the origin of Fleck’s monograph as based on his stated sources, and discusses its possible impetus. It also outlines the rediscovery of the monograph and what could be described as the construction of Fleck as an important figure in modern sociology and theory of science who expounded prescient views that influenced Kuhn deeply; as well, it examines how this construction has influenced the views of the alleged impetus of Fleck’s mission. Fleck has been interpreted as furthering a relativistic conception of science. His account of the Wassermann reaction, which forms the basis of his epistemology, has been praised as having been developed by a scientist well- acquainted with the field in question (cf., Hacking 1999, p 60). Because of the scarcity of available material on Fleck, however, the question of his sources has remained unresolved. In the first paper, an alternative reading is suggested.
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